


The Star and the Sky

by ghostyplasma



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Gift Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:15:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29106201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostyplasma/pseuds/ghostyplasma
Summary: *A gift ficlette for HerrKirschbaum, based off of their work called "Candy." 🤍*“'Last name Smith. Big fuckin’ guy, built like a brick house. Don’t even know how you could wrangle that one,' Kenny laughs then, probably imagining the scene; me, Levi, beating the shit out of some brick-wall of aSmithin the back alleyway of who-the-fuck-knows in Queens...In which Levi the New York cabbie is unfairly framed, demands some answers, and gets more to bite than he can chew.
Relationships: Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	The Star and the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HerrKirschbaum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerrKirschbaum/gifts).



> Hello! This work is based off of one of my new favorite author's fics here, HerrKirschbaum, called "Candy." I highly, highly recommend you all to please check it out before reading any further, as it is very wonderful and will give you all the context clues that I am writing about. v///v 
> 
> Furthermore, HerrKirschbaum, I hope you don't mind me fangirling hardcore over your work. I just had this crazy headcanon based off of "Candy" for the last couple of days and needed to get it out of my head and onto paper. This is my two-part gift to you! I hope all is well on your side of the world. Thanks so much for your gorgeous writing, part two will be delivered in the next couple of days! 🤍🤍🤍
> 
> *** It might be good to add that while this was cooking in my head, the last line "One week later we met again." was completely overlooked and is divergent in this =w=;;; Perhaps treat this as though they did not, in fact, meet again just yet. hehe. Please enjoy!!!!

It’s a long while until I hear from him again. Five, six weeks, but who’s counting? In fact, it might even be my fault, but you won’t see me admitting to that fact. After all, he did leave me _his_ business card at the end of it all. Ask me why I never called him back. Go ahead, ask me, shithead. 

I flick the cigarette out the window in my moment of mortal dismay, trying to wash my thoughts out with the cold night air as it blows through the open window. It beats and whips the dark fringe around my forehead and my ears, but it’s enough stimulus to remind me that I’m here, in this moment, and not back in my shithole of an apartment, regretting and pouring over every bad decision I have ever possibly made. Instead, I drive my new route, just like I’m supposed to, just like every other night in this never-sleeping cityscape. New York City sprawls out before me, full of endless possibilities and unsurprisingly shitty tips, in all of its glossy-road glory painted with red, green, and yellow lights.

I bid farewell to the third customer of my shift, counting the cash with quick fingers and stuffing the extra fiver into my front jean jacket pocket. The curbside I had pulled into is a perfect place to stall for another cigarette, and so I do, pulling one out and thumbing a match on the rough face of my steering wheel. The smell of burning sulfur dioxide excites something in me that is otherwise fatigued. I allow the flame to burn before I touch it to my cigarette, until it nearly reaches my fingertips, taking deep breaths of that intoxicating smoke smell before it's gone for good. The radio crackles at the same moment I take a deep pull.

“K850, K850, honey, you there?” Rosa’s voice lilts between the static. I fish another match out just to watch it burst into a bright flame again.

Sighing, I pick up the transponder. “Check. What’s up? Just finished a route, ready for another.”

At her next delivered line, she starts to sound nervous. “That’s good, hon, but I actually have nothin’ for you just yet.” My brows shoot up half an inch at that. Why would she be calling me, then, if not to give me my next sense of direction? “I’m touchin’ base ‘cause you’re unc- oop, sorry, Mr. Ackermann just caught wind of a pretty bad review sent your way. He’s here with me, he’d like to talk with you.” She says this all very kind-heartedly, very sensitive and cautious.

I roll my eyes, annoyed, perplexed. I take too long to respond to her, which she notices, but I ignore the worried bid for feedback and instead take a few long drags instead. I wrack my brain for whatever schmo would’ve had the nerve or even the goddamn time to follow up a report on me and my _amazing_ services. It’s New York, for chrissakes, what are ya expecting, the Golden Ticket Express?

I lick my dry lips in mild paranoia and click the transponder button again. “A’right, shoot.” 

Kenny’s voice is the next to grate my ears. “What the fuck kind of high horse are you on lately?” he yells, and I pinch the bridge of my nose to still the slew of comments I could hurl right back at him.

“Yer startin’ to pull a lot of Jack’s, Levi, and it ain’t yer goddamn trade.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Yer not actin’ like yourself lately, damnit, and it don’t take no four-eyes to see it, and yer _screwin’ with business_!” he harps, melodramatic. 

“Are ya gonna tell me what you’re on about or do I have to just start guessing?” I hiss, flicking the ash out the car door and glaring at any passerbyers that try and peer into my open window. 

“Last month you completely went awol on us and disappeared for an entire goddamn night, and now, a passenger is calling to complain that you _assaulted_ him?!” his voice gets grainy and rough towards the end, with all his years being a rampant champ of a chainsmoker. “The hell is goin’ on with you lately? I put you on this team with the express order, the only order, to not fuck it up. And _Levi_ ,” he gives great pause, and like I said, dramatic, “you’re _fuckin’ it up_ , kid!”

I sit up as tall as I can in my worn pleather driver’s seat. “Now, Kenny,” I say, my voice dropping dangerously low, “I might’ve done a lot of fucked up shit in life, best as you know, but I ain’t _ever_ assaulted no John. Never.” I flick the rest of the still-lit cigarette out my window in anger, raking my hands through my greasy hair. “Not today, not last month, not ever.”

“Well why did he know you by name, Levi? By cab number? The fuck kinds of details are those if they ain’t to be complained about?” he spits, and I think I almost hear Rosa try and coax him down from his rage on the other end. “Jesus, with this guy,” he tells her, his thumb still pressing the radio button. 

I massage my forehead for a moment, trying to think. “What else did he say?” I bite the bullet, play along, and hope for an easy way out of this mess.

“He came in, left his name and number, and told him that you led him late-night and beat the fuck outta him behind an alley in Queens.”

“Queens?” I mutter after him, incredulous and, I’ll admit it, with a hint of indignancy in my voice. I just couldn’t believe it. It doesn’t not sound like me, don’t get me wrong, I’m known to make my own fucked up choices, but in _Queens_ …? “Where in Queens are we even talkin’?” 

Kenny sighs raggedly on the other end as if he’s talking to an imbecile, and I can just imagine the bags underneath his eyes, the stench of 9am coffee on his breath. “I don’t know exactly, Lev, he didn’t say.” 

“You said he left a name?” 

“Yeah.”

“What was it?”

“Agh, hold- hold on, Rosa’s grabbing his business card right now…” The line goes blank for a couple of breathable seconds, and in that time, I uselessly pull out another cigarette- the last from my pack. Suspicion begins to crawl up from my empty stomach and into my throat, its tendrils thick, black, and inky, and I don’t know if I’m afraid of this feeling, or invitatious of it.

“Last name Smith. Big fuckin’ guy, built like a brick house. Don’t even know how you could wrangle that one,” he laughs then, probably imagining the scene; me, Levi, beating the shit out of some brick-wall of a _Smith_...

The air that leaves my lungs is colored by nothing other than disdain and sudden realization, a loud and long-drawn groan that makes me sound like an ever-suffering teenager. That fucking guy, what a prick, what a great way to wave your arms out and say, “Hey, did you forget about me? Well, now you haven’t!”

My thumb slams on the transponder button then after I dig my grave and lie in it. “Kenny, listen. I’m sorry, a’right? It won’t happen again. It was my fault and I- I take full responsibility for it.”

A long pause enters the chat. I start to get nervous. I don’t think I’ve ever said those words, to anyone for that matter, and Kenny is probably just as shocked by it as, Hell, anyone would be who really knows me. 

“Levi?” he asks, and there it is, confusion coloring his old, raggedy voice. 

“Yeah? Did you hear me?” 

“Well, yeah, but… Son, are you a’right?”

“Oh, bite the curb,” I toss at him without any real venom. “I mean it.” I take in another quick breath in, breath out. “Forgive me, please. Won’t happen again.”

The crackle of the radio, his voice fading out for a second or two in between. “Well, jeez, cupcake. Alright. Make sure it don’t happen again. I mean it, Levi.” He sounds as if he really believes him and I got somewhere, and it takes me every ounce to not laugh at him and take it all back in earnest. 

“Yeah,” I bite out hollowly, but I don’t let him hear the words. Rosa informs me a little later when we’ve all cooled down that the night is dead so far, and to wait for her call. “Take a break, refresh,” she drawls with a cool smile in her voice.

Instead, I hunt for the nearest payphone. I whip out my old cloth wallet, find his business card, and feed the phone some spare coins before jamming the numbers in with my thumb and pressing the receiver between my jaw and shoulder. 

It rings a couple of times, and on the fifth ring, just as my anger starts to boil the blood from my tips to my toes, the line gives.

As if absentminded, he answers. “Hello, Smith speaking?”

“You have got a lot of Goddamn nerve.” I enunciate each syllable for him, leaning one arm heavily against the glass wall to my right. “A lot.”

“Levi,” he breathes on the other end, and there’s mixed emotions there. Relief, apprehension, excitement, I hear it all. “Listen,” he continues in that perfect, crumpety accent of his, “I know it isn’t conventional, but-”

“But _nothin’_ , man, you really burned my ass back there!” I steam. I pick at the dead skin from my cuticles and glare menacingly at my own reflection, imagining in that reflection that it’s Smith’s face in front of me, blond brows knit in worry, repenting wordlessly therein for the trouble he’s caused. Like a goddamn clueless, lost puppy is what he is.

“I know, surely I must’ve.” Erwin says, and there is a sense of deep-toned regret in his voice. He breathes on the other end, as if waiting for me to yell at him some more. 

I groan, letting my forehead fall to meet the back of my curled palm. 

“Are you upset with me?” 

“Yes,” I bite, and then suck on my chapped lower lip. “I’m- I meant to call you, okay? I just-- never got around to doing it, didn’t have the time.”

“I see.” 

“You couldn’t wait, like, another week before going all guns ‘n’ glory on me?” I laugh then, trying to wipe away my own sardonic tone and probably failing.

He sighs. Then, as if it weren’t difficult at all for him to admit this out loud, he tells me, “I’m back from London and I- just wanted to see you and I- well, I didn’t know how else to reach you.” A pause. “I tried a couple of times, the same street as before. You were never there.”

I suck noisily at the front of my teeth. “Different routes at different times, sweetheart.” He makes a humming sound as if to show he understands.

With my temper somewhat cooled down, Erwin surprises me by taking a bold gamble. He asks me, “When are you off tonight?”

“6 a.m.,” I remind him, “but it’s slow.” I add, almost as if to get both of our hopes up. My heart thumps noticeably in my chest, as if I can actually feel it again, after all this time. “Why, ya tryna have a repeat of last time?”

Erwin blows a raspberry, then laughs, nervous and strained. “No, actually, not really quite like that.”

I snort, “Then what?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to go and have dinner with me.” It’s my turn to offer a real good, full bit of laughter. He drudged all this up, Kenny and all, for a pair of cheesesteaks and beer, then?

“Listen,” I counter, and as I say this in the way that I do, I can physically feel myself pushing him away. I sit with this feeling, with these words on my tongue, dissect them in the split time that I have, and realize that I am one stupid motherfucker. I deflate a little, my fist sliding down the glass wall. “I’m off at 6 a.m.” I say again, softer this time, but hopeful nonetheless.

He is quick to answer. “Tomorrow?”

“My next day off is Wednesday.” 

“Two days.”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” he agrees, more confident now. I can hear the glib smile in his voice, and it makes me share that smile, too. 

“What time?”

“Any time.” he says, unafraid to share his eagerness, then reels himself back a little. “What time do you eat?”

“8 sounds good, if you drink.”

He laughs, and fuck is it a sexy sound. “I do.”

“Cool.”

“Great.”

 _God_ , I think, suddenly too self-aware. _Am I really getting myself hooked into a real date?_

“Levi,” he cuts my inner monologue in two with his big fat proverbial knife, “give me your number.” 

“I don’t got a cell.” I drawl, picking at my front teeth and wondering what he’ll come up with next. 

A pause for consideration, and then, “What about the flat I can collect you from?” Heat crawls from the back of my neck to my ears. Bold. I give it to him, twice so he can memorize it, trying to push down the rising excitement glittering in my veins. 

“Perfect. I’ll see you soon. Good-bye, Levi.” He hangs up after I say it back, good-bye, see you soon, all that, and I swallow hard. I am alone now in the all-too-warm cage of the phone booth.

When I get back to the cab, Rosa is on repeat. “K850? K850, where did you go?”

“I’m here, I’m here, sorry. Had to take a piss.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I was afraid you got mugged, like K450.”

I roll my eyes, fitting the loose cigarette I had forgotten towards the end of Kenny and I’s enlightening conversation. “I’m not Armin, Rosa.” I crank the gear into drive. “Where to next?”


End file.
